Thursday, November 21, 2013

The GAC took note of the developments on the two strings .wine and .vin from its previous meetings in Beijing and Durban.

GAC members have undertaken extensive discussions to examine a diversity of views on these applications, and the protections associated with Geographical Indications (GIs).

GAC considers that appropriate safeguards against possible abuse of these new gTLDs are needed.

Some members are of the view, after prolonged and careful consideration, that the existing safeguards outlined in the GAC’s Beijing Communiqué and implemented by the ICANN Board are appropriate and sufficient to deal with the potential for misuse of the .wine and .vin new gTLDs. These members welcome the Board's response to these safeguards, which prohibit fraudulent or deceptive use of domain names. They consider that it would be inappropriate and a serious concern if the agreed international settings on GIs were to be redesigned by ICANN. The current protections for geographical indications are the outcome of carefully balanced negotiations. Any changes to those protections are more appropriately negotiated among intellectual property experts in the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization.

Other members consider that delegation of .wine and.vin strings should remain on hold until either sufficient additional safeguards to protect GIs are put into place in these strings to protect the consumers and businesses that rely on such GIs; or common ground has been reached for the worldwide protection of GIs via international fora and wide array of major trade agreements. Given this changing context, they welcome the current face-to-face talks between the applicants for .wine and .vin. and wine producers, aiming to protect their assets and consumers’ interests whilst taking into account governments’ public policy concerns.

The Board may wish to seek a clear understanding of the legally complex and politically sensitive background on this matter in order to consider the appropriate next steps in the process of delegating the two strings. GAC members may wish to write to the Board to further elaborate their views.

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The EU has a large market share (around 75% globally) and has an established system of Geographical Indications (GIs) that guarantees the nature and quality of the wine products.

The global scope of the gTLD and a lack of clear rules and safeguards can only amplify these problems.

Without an adequate dispute resolution procedure, the legal burden placed on title-holders of potentially misused GI names is disproportionate.

I still believe that agreeable solutions can be found among interested parties so that the strings can be delegated in a safe manner for both GI right holders and consumers.

Someone did a very bad job on this one: The Beijing consensus advice was that further consideration was needed regarding the .wine and .vin strings and that the Board should be advised not to proceed beyond initial evaluation. There is no reason why this advice should be overruled, especially if some solution can be found between the parties.

OUCH: The only possible default in case of no GAC consensus should be no advice. This is why the current discussion around .wine and .vin also raises questions concerning decision­ making procedures in the GAC, preparation of meetings by the secretariat, the role of the chair and the possibility and conditions for GAC members to vote.

If there was no possible solution among interested parties because of the complexity of the matter, our position remains that the strings should not be delegated.

Monday, November 4, 2013

I am happy to announce a new website dedicated to NEW gTLDs info only.

When I launched the "new generic Top-Level Domains" group on LinkedIn, I thought it could be the place to network and share knowledge about new gTLDs but I also noticed that readers (Journalists, IP departments, Back-end Registries, new gTLD applicants, Registrars and many others) subscribed just "to be informed" about what is going-on in the new gTLD world.

For this reason I decided to create a place where readers could come, without having to log-in and provide a password and just "click and read". This is what NEWSgTLDs.com is about: